Thank you for visiting my web site! For all of you that are following along
with my monthly Hedge-a-grams, I have lots of news. If this if the first time
you've seen my hedge-a-gram, let me explain. Because kids and teachers like to
know the behind the scenes work of an author, I thought that it would be a happy
learning experience for you to follow along through my year creating a book.
This year, the book I'm retelling and illustrating is The Gingerbread Baby. I've
finished my book dummy or cartoon version of the new picture book (which is
always 32 pages) and I went to G. P. Putnam's, my publisher in New York to have
a meeting about it. My editor, Margaret, liked the boisterous fun feeling of the
baby's personality, so baby may do even more rascally things in the finished
book. All the more reason everyone wants to catch him!

My art director, Cecilia, helps me with the design of the pages - when we
work together we are concerned with where the viewers eye will go - for me, it's
easy to put in lots of detail, so we try to plan and leave enough space for the
type.

I have had lots of fun cooking springerle cookies. They are traditional in
Switzerland where I've set my version of the story. These cookies are made with
carved wooden molds and they can be of animals, flowers, people or designs. They
will form the borders of my book, with the shape of the gingerbread boy stamped
out of each side panel of the page to show and extra scene.

Next I'm going to be baking gingerbread people, and as they come out of the
oven, I'll shape them to match the book characters' antics. Also on my list of
things to do is to visit my friend Nancy's farm to sketch her goats, go to a dog
show to see Bernese Mountain Dogs puling their painted milk carts, and get
together the photos of my friend, Alexander, who is the inspiration for the
little boy. Right now the boy in the book doesn't have a name. It must be Swiss,
but still a name American children will be comfortable with, and also it needs
to be a short name.

If you have any suggestions, I hope that you'll drop me an email note.

Now that I'm at work on the "finishes" (the artwork that you'll see
in the book) for The Gingerbread Baby, I want to be in my art studio every
minute.